Venus Can Outshine Jupiter

The larger planet prevails during the night, but at dawn the smaller globe lights up the sky.

Jupiter reigns unchallenged in the evening sky during July as Saturn and Mars slip inexorably lower, to be consumed in the lingering glow of the post-sunset sky.

After our star system's largest planet has set, however, Venus shines even more brilliantly during the breaking dawn.

Early risers and night owls can see the Earth's sister planet low in the east-northeast sky. Rising before 4 a.m. Eastern time, Venus will appear close to Aldebaran as the month begins. Sunday, Venus will be just to the upper left of the star, the brightest in the constellation Taurus, the bull. Later in the month, on the 23rd, Venus will be at its most northerly position of the year. As the month ends, the planet's position at sunrise will begin to sink slowly toward the eastern horizon.

During the hours most of us keep, Jupiter is the brightest object after sunset besides the moon.

The planet blazes in the southern sky, high above faint Saturn and Mars low in the west. Jupiter sets around 2 a.m. as the month begins, and just about midnight at July's end.

Saturn is low on the horizon at sunset -- difficult to see in the summer twilight.

Mercury is lower still, likely too faint to be seen by the unaided eye. To Saturn's upper left, and as faint, lies Mars.

On July 21, about 45 minutes after sunset, Mars will appear just to the upper right of the star Regulus, which shines brighter than the red planet, now relatively distant from Earth.

The next night, the two bodies will be even closer as Mars appears almost directly on top of the contrasting bluish-white star, so close that you'll need binoculars to distinguish them.

Around that time of month, Saturn will sink too low to be made out with the naked eye.

After July 4, look for the waxing moon between Jupiter (on the left) and the star Spica. The next evening, the moon will be just to the lower left of Jupiter. The moon is full July 10.

Early in the morning of July 20, the waning crescent moon will occult, or appear to pass in front of, the Pleiades.

The show starts shortly after moonrise and continues until it is lost in the light of dawn.

Also of note, on Monday at 7 p.m. Earth will reach aphelion, the point in its orbit where it is farthest from the sun.

This occurs just as the warmest weather of the year in the Northern Hemisphere commences in earnest. *